Selling the design

Yesterday driving the city I noticed a big board which invited to buy a flat in a house. The interesting fact about this sell was that the is not built yet and the construction has not even started! But they have a fully visualized 3D-model of the house which you can use to imagine how your new dwelling will look like. I doubt that anyone has any apprehensions that real estate company can and will build the house so that it will look exactly like it looks in the model (i.e. in the project). So what they are essentially doing they are selling a design, not a completely usable product. Can you imagine anyone selling a design of a software product to end-users? Or even better, can you imagine anyone buying that?

Unfortunately, in software industry we do not get that level of credibility like they do in civil engineering industry. But I do believe it is possible with of software engineering profession. If you agree with me the Professional Software Development by Steve McConnell will reassure you. If you do not agree this book will, probably, persuade you that it is possible.